Determination of Aflatoxin M₁

Aflatoxin M₁ is toxic in several ways. Lifeasible offers a service to help detect Aflatoxin M₁ in milk and milk products.

Aflatoxin M₁ is a metabolite of aflatoxin B₁, produced by certain species of fungi that grow on crops. When animals consume feed contaminated with aflatoxin B₁, the toxin can be metabolized and excreted in their milk as aflatoxin M₁ (Fig. 1). Aflatoxin M₁ has carcinogenicity. Humans who consume milk or milk products contaminated with aflatoxin M₁ can be at risk of developing liver cancer. It also has genotoxicity, mutagenicity, and teratogenicity. It can cause serious health problems in humans. Thus, aflatoxin M₁ poses a worldwide concern, particularly for infants and children who consume large quantities of milk and are more susceptible to the adverse effects of Aflatoxin M₁. We offer a service to determine aflatoxin M₁ in milk and milk products to help confirm that they are safe.

Fig. 1 Aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) is metabolized into aflatoxin M₁ (AFM₁) in the liver (Womack et al., 2016).

Our Services

We help determine aflatoxin M₁ based on immunoaffinity chromatography and thin-layer chromatography. The milk and milk products that we can help test include raw milk skimmed liquid milk, and milk powder. The lowest quantity of aflatoxin M₁ that we can commonly determine is 2 ng.

The method requires a reduction in the disturbance of fat in the milk. We help remove fat interference by centrifugation and filtration. We then use an immunoaffinity chromatography to enrich aflatoxin M₁ and clean up other substances in the samples. Subsequently, we elute aflatoxin M₁ from the column using methanol and acetonitrile. After the concentration of the eluate, we then use thin-layer chromatography to separate the aflatoxin M₁ and possible interferers and calculate its content.

Operation flow:

Main reference standard:

ISO 14674:2005

Lifeasible specializes in milk testing and offers services to help detect aflatoxin M₁ in milk and milk products. Since aflatoxin M₁ is derived from aflatoxin B₁. We also offer services to help detect aflatoxin B₁ in the forage. To detect other toxins in milk and milk products, please refer to the section on toxin testing in food testing. If you have any questions, please contact us for more information.